Obscured by Clouds. The rough and ready blog of a cloud benighted biologist and amateur astronomer. Astroblog will cover my interests in astronomy, biology and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Venus Returns (and Heralds the Planet Dance), 17 May 2013.

Venus and Jupiter as seen from Adelaide on 17 May, 2013. Imaged with a Canon IXUS, 1/4 sec exposure, ASA 400 3x Zoom at 5:55 pm ACST. Jupiter is the dot at the top right, Venus is bottom left, indicated by the yellow lines. You will need to click on the image to embiggen to see Venus clearly.

Venus has finally returned to the evening skies. Well, it's been in the evening skies fro a while, but with the lousy weather of the past few week, there was no chance to see it.

Venus is very close to the horizon, and deep in the twilight, but I could see it and Jupiter clearly at 5:40 pm. Venus was a mere three finger-widths from the horizon, and lowere by the time the sky was dark enough for a photo 15 minutes later.

Over the coming week Venus will rise higher in the sky, and Jupiter gets lower, with the pair meeting on the 28th and 29th. Before that Mercury will join them in the evening sky. The next two weeks will be quite interesting.

I recently received (earier this week) my first real scope, a Nexstar. Looking forward to my 12v cable arriving and some clear skies. Will be good to utilise the in info in this blog a lot more in future. Thanks Ian.